On Johnny Carson’s final episode of The Tonight Show, he showed a montage of some of the guests who had been on the show over the years. The final image – one of only two in black and white – was that of Hubert Humphrey.
Hubert Humphrey, Democrat of Minnesota, served as Vice President of the United States from 1965-69. He was called “the Happy Warrior” by his admirers. A civil rights supporter from the very earliest days of his political career, he put forward a pro-civil rights proposal at the 1948 Democratic National Convention, provoking a walkout by Strom Thurmond and other Dixiecrats.
Vice President Walter Mondale, Democrat of Minnesota, lost in a landslide election in 1984 to Ronald Reagan. Mondale only carried his home state and the District of Columbia. His electoral vote total is the second lowest in history. The lowest vote record belongs to Alf London, Republican of Kansas, who was crushed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.
In his second run for the Presidency, Nixon won in a landslide over George McGovern, taking every state but Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. During the Watergate scandal, a popular bumper sticker read DON’T BLAME ME–I’M FROM MASSACHUSETTS.
Before he was elected President, Richard M. Nixon, spoofing his square image, once appeared on Laugh-In saying, in a shocked tone of voice, “Sock it to me?”
Richard Nixon met his future wife Pat while both of them were performing in a production of The Dark Tower by George Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott. He proposed to her on their first date.
Alexander Woolcott was best known as a theater critic and was instrumental in turning the Marx Brothers into Broadway stars by his effusive praise of their play, “I’ll Say She Is.” (The review, if you read it today, is pretty much Woolcott patting himself on the back; he says very little about the play or the Marxes other than they were very funny.) This set up a lifelong friendship with Harpo Marx. In in book, Harpo Speaks, Harpo recounted an incident where he left California and spent several days traveling to Woolcott’s summer home in Maine, whereupon, upon arrival, Harpo took off his clothes, ran around naked for a few minutes, then took the long trip back.
Alexander Woollcott suffered a fatal heart attack when appearing on his last radio broadcast, The People’s Broadcast, on January 23, 1943. “It’s a fallacy to think that Hitler was the cause of the world’s present woes,” he said. Woollcott continued, adding "Germany was the cause of Hitler. He said nothing further. The radio audience was unaware that Woollcott had suffered a heart attack. Several people commented that he was “quieter than usual” on the show.
He was buried in Clinton, New York, at his alma mater, Hamilton College, but not without some confusion. By mistake, his ashes were sent to Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. When the error was corrected and the ashes were forwarded to Hamilton College, they arrived with 67¢ postage due.
Jerome “J.I.” Rodale, publisher of Organic Gardening magazine (still the world’s most widely read gardening periodical) and health-oriented *Prevention *magazine, died while appearing as a guest on Dick Cavett’s talk show in 1971 while seated alongside columnist Pete Hamill. The episode, allegedly including Cavett asking “Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?” was never broadcast.
Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy, was in an automobile accident before shooting began on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. In the accident, his car flipped and he broke his nose and cheek bones. To account for the resulting scar, George Lucas had Skywalker in hit in the face by a Wampa, a yeti-like creature on the ice world Hoth.
Mark Hamill’s non-Star Wars film acting credits include Corvette Summer, The Big Red One, Hamilton, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, Britannia Hospital, Slipstream, The Guyver, Midnight Ride and the 1995 remake of Village of the Damned.
“The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” was a dark country song about a man who is falsely convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s husband. The singer reveals that it was actually she, the little sister, who killed both the husband and his wife. Composed by Bobby Russell, the song was originally offered to Cher, and eventually recorded by Russell’s wife, actress Vicki Lawrence. It reached #1 in the U.S. and Canada. Ironically, the song it replaced as #1 was Roberta Flack’s version of “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”
Vicki Lawrence has appeared on Hollywood Squares both as herself and in character as Thelma “Mama” Harper.
In the early 60s, Paul Newman had an affinity for films beginning with the letter H: **The Hustler, Hud, ** and Hombre, for example. It even cause the producers to change the name of the main character Lew Archer (from a Ross McDonald novel) to Harper.
The Newman and Redford classic The Sting had a (lamentable) sequel in which their characters were played by Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis respectively. The Newman and Redford classic Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid had a prequel in which their character were played by Tom Berenger and William Katt (whose real life mother Barbara Hale played Della Street in the Perry Mason series and movies).
William Howard Taft was the heaviest President; James Madison was the smallest. Both were proteges, a century apart, of arguably more successful Presidents: Taft of Theodore Roosevelt (whom he succeeded in 1909), and Madison of Thomas Jefferson (whom he succeeded in 1809).
Four state capitals and a national capital have been named after US presidents. The state capitals are Madison, Wisconsin; Jackson, Mississippi; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Jefferson City, Missouri. The national capital is Monrovia, Liberia (the country was founded by newly freed American slaves).
And one entire department (akin to a state in the US) in Paraguay, along with its former capital, are named for US president Rutherford B. Hayes: Presidente Hayes department and Villa Hayes.
Hayes’ vice president was William A. Wheeler, a member of the House of Representatives from New York. Wheeler was known for his honesty and not much else. When Hayes was informed that Wheeler would be his running mate, Hayes replied: “I am ashamed to say: Who is Wheeler?”
Wheeler, the American and an impulsive comic, was the oldest of the five Planeteers on the animated 1990-92 TV show “Captain Planet and the Planeteers”, controlling the power of Fire. The group was led by the spirit of Gaia, awakened in response to the polluting abuses humanity had been wreaking upon Earth. In true crises, the Planeteers would combine their power rings to summon Captain Planet and his superpowers. The show was created by Ted Turner in an attempt to make environmental preservation seem cool to kids.